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Rook could help but wonder of humans and their many eccentricities. They were a stocky, squishy species who had evolved out of deep waters and into trees. Their upper and lower limbs both did an excellent job at grasping for leverage, unsatisfied by mere aquatic or terranean mobility.
Sometimes they would swap facts about their peoples and, after listening to a carefully articulated summation of Revonnahgander physiology, announced that Rook was like wood. Or in this instance, a branch.
Ben had been clinging to Rook since setting off for the protoship. Primates carried their fellows and were built with interlocking limbs, but Ben had been gradually loosening to the point that the effort was almost entirely put on Rook to lug his small, heavy partner.
Seas were a rare phenomenon and earth had seven . Those voluminous, exposed bodies of water had generated billions of species and was so important that nearly all of earth’s species dutifully carried it inside of themselves.
Ben’s hydraulic body had been penetrated along the left outer forearm. Humans could see degrees of radiation via a refined color vision but this hue Rook knew to be similar to that of his kind’s sole nutritional resource.
Water was sacred to humans, a highly superstitious species built around senseless yet charming rituals that reaped no tangible rewards. Every day, Ben would dowse himself in falling water; every week he would put his dressings in an automated machine which would purge impurities by sloshing the cloth repeatedly, to be stripped of its water, folded, and then meticulously arranged before any of it may be used again.
Ben thought himself dirty and had been trying unsuccessfully to press the edges of his opened skin together to stimmy the outpour. He’d said repeatedly that humans produce liquids on their skins that caused awful smells via feeding microbes like bacteria. He said it because he’d been trying to force Rook to participate in the earth ritual of bathing under the guise of how Earth germs were living on his body.
Had Ben not been so bothered, Rook would have admitted he actually quite liked the dark amber streaming down his chest like fancy river-ribbons, he even almost understood why the Earth lives were so attached to their personal treasure troves. It was thicker than the bay or harbor yet a solid, velvety colour. It stuck and clumped in the crevices of his armor, crusting in his hand and he learned a new meaning of the stuff; it was earth.
Not earth as in the planet, rather the dirt in which life sustained itself. The first time raw water had made met the surface to turn the solid earth into sludge, Rook had thought it was an apocalypse. He did not know that it was normal to the point of being named. And so he could gather that a human’s ocean somehow doubled as their dirt or clay.
A garbled sound came between his ears where Ren’s head had been propped up and held in place.
Ben often made noises while in torpor, mottling or mumbling mild incoherencies, twitching and shifting within his dense nest of fabrics and plush things.
Torpor was a phenomenon not seen often in living things. A state of obligatory, extended unconsciousness where the individual was subject to bodily processes? Where they grew or healed or renewed, brain stowing away information and shrinking in size as it cleaned from the poisonings of its own faulty respiratory systems?
It was a wonder the species had survived past early evolution, and seeing as how so much of their time was spent in this altered state it impacted their perspectives and behaviors even while out of it. Ben claimed that within his species were cultures with their own languages. In Ben’s spoken language (as he had separate ones in writing, benavuor, and gesture) the words for torpor were ‘sleep’, ‘rest’, ‘konked’, and ‘slumber’, which Rook was told had their own meanings secondary to unconsciousness.
Earlier, Ben had declared in gasping breaths “I’m going to keel”, which seemed a rather passionate bit of phrasing. The muscles in his face had been taught and meaningful, hands smeared and ground dribbled with that wondrous amber.
At some point, when the excitement seemed to have passed and Rook had stooped down to more properly carry Ben’s immense weight, Rook had asked what that colour looked like to Ben’s species.
Humans had excellent perception of shades as well as colour and Rook had wondered if the solidness of its hue was borne of a limitation in his perspective.
“Your eyes,” Was Ben’s unclear answer, too garbled for Rook to be certain his translator had properly relayed it. “S’like your eyes, or apples. Red.” His volume dipped and slurred together beneath the heavy breaths. “Darker, though.. pressure but not the urgents. Not an artery.” The pitch lifted at the end into something almost like a question.
Rook, having no answer, not knowing what an ‘artery’ was, mildly patted Ben with an ear, happy to hear his favourite white noise, even if only for a few seconds.
Human respiration was gaseous and constant, which was strange for a life form evolved around so much liquid. The lungs used for breath were the same for speech, being designed similar to balloons. Rook had once seen Ben go forty-two seconds (in Earth terms) without air, which apparently was a feat. What was strangest about it was that humans could swim quite well yet were not built to float. If their limbs were bound, they might very well sink. They had webbed hands and thick fingers, lungs arranged toward their backs to vacuum up air through the same tubing as was used for consumption (as human eating went all through the body).
Right now, Ben’s breath was fast and his bumpy, human heart was fast enough to halfway pass as a Revonnahgander’s. It couldn’t be panting, he wasn’t doing anything; it didn’t seem to be laughter, as Ben seemed calm and at rest. Maybe air was taking the place of the amber as Ben’s tubbing slowly drained, with each gasp helping to maintain the shape of his body in place of its usual materials. If so, Rook was happy for it; humans had far too much heft for creatures so small.
Ben had first wanted to put himself together where they’d started, over there by the scrapinal, where the ground was still dusty from its breakage. He’d changed his mind when he decided that either his materials were insufficient or his patience too lacking, remarking that “They’re too wide”. Rook had offered to carry Ben shortly thereafter, when the human proved too wet and sleepy to walk very well on his own.
There’d been some apologies after that, when the tapes, papers, and cloths collectively labeled ‘bandages’ slipped off from the wetness to dribble where Ben clearly thought was rude. It was rude to make someone else dirty or to make it so that they would have to be a different texture in places, humans were full of odd rules.
Ben’s breath was changing from perplexingly rapid to almost worrying. Once, after moving to the aid of a fellow human downed by seemingly nothing, Ben had tried explaining to Rook the concept of hyperventilating.
“You are fine,” Rook said, making use of the softer tones Ben had taught him. Prey animals scare at sharp noises and predators excite at volume. He was to keep his voice hushed, smooth, and level. “I have you, and-“ What more was there to say? Ben clearly didn’t want to lose his precious sea but there didn’t seem to be any immediate solution. “-We will be at the Prototruk quickly, there is water there.”
That earned him a confused giggle, “You- Thaz random, Rooksie-Roo.” Ben breathed quietly.
“Your word for it is a ‘non-sequitor’.” Rook reminded while patiently ignoring the fact that there was very clear logic behind his plan.
“Z’ two .” The dryer arm dragged limply to spread his fingers in Rook’s periphery before it fell down against his chest. “S’a term .”
“Forgive me, if forgiveness is what I need to ask for,” More giggling. “Your language is very strange.”
“M’a.. a strange thing.. ya know ih.”
“You sound tired.” Rook noted, fairly certain he’d used the right synonym.
“Noh gonna do ih.” Ben grumbled with mute defiance.
“You will feel better when you are rested.”
“ No ,” Ben’s weight shifted, neck extending to grab one of Rook’s ears meaningly between two of his teeth, the pointy ones used to pinch and tear. Rook flicked it away with surprising ease, then used the other to flick against the back of Ben’s head.
“Do not eat me, you will have food in the Prototruck.”
“Pressure’ll drop,” Ben mumbled,
“I do not understand?”
“I think… the E.R… Dah’s a pracsher.. m’noh allowed, s’a risk ‘cause I’m always tailed ‘n Omni’s signalin’. Migh’ noh’ do good ‘nough myself, ‘kay? So.. You’ll do ih? You’ll need to..”
Rook listened curiously, wondering what his partner was going on about. Had been going on about, he was gasping now, trying to reclaim his breath.
“You should rest if you are tired.” Rook said again.
Ben made a growling groan and reached with his teeth again, Rook knowingly evading. “Pressure.” Ben said firmly.
“You are not under pressure.”
“S’ droppin ’, m’bluein’..” The hands shifted slightly, ultimately remaining in place. “S’ droppin ’, ya gotta be fast . I thin- think I’m goin’ inta shauhk. Okay? Gotta be quiet… Save m’breath. Gettin’ harder, so you gotta do ih. I trust ya.”
“I will be fast,” Rook decided to say, debating the message he’d send to Gwen for gossip on the silly things Ben sometimes said or did. Once, he’d run around a town excitedly hollering about monsters from his planet’s popcultural media. It got him in a fair bit of trouble and Rook miiight have had a touch too much fun with the reprimands. For the days after, Gwen and he conspired for an extended prank that, regrettably, got out of hand in a way that upset his partner in a non-fun, emotionally painful manner.
The advice he’d gotten in the aftermath was to play it straight, as Ben had a way of remedying his own issues if given the space and time. In spite of his species social status, Ben was clinically recognized outlier and did not do the things Rook saw in his textbooks like drinking poisonous beverages to depress the central nervous system or pressing mouths or privates with a fellow primate.
Sometimes the advice worked, others it let things tense for days or months. On this occasion, the best course of action might be to get to the truck so Ben could have rest and drink, and worry about all else once back to headquarters. Either Gwen would give commentary or Max instructions, and sometimes it was humans who made the best plans when Ben was involved.